Italian Libya (Italian: Libia Italiana; Arabic: ليبيا الإيطالية‎, Lībyā al-Īṭālīya) was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya. Italian Libya was formed from the Italian colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania that were taken by the Kingdom of Italy from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, after the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 to 1912; the unified colony was established in 1934.[3] The Italians were forced to evacuate Libya in 1943 after being defeated there by the Allies in WWII.

The territory of Italian Libya was also called Italian North Africa (Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI), both before and after its unification in 1934.

The history of Libya as an Italian colony started in 1911 and was characterized initially by a major struggle with Muslim native Libyans that lasted until 1931. During this period, the Italian government controlled only the coastal areas of the colony. Between 1911 and 1912, over 1,000 Somalis from Mogadishu, the then capital of Italian Somaliland, served as combat units along with Eritrean and Italian soldiers in the Italo-Turkish War.[4] Most of the troops stationed never returned home until they were transferred back to Italian Somaliland in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.[5]

In the 1930s, the policy of Italian Fascism toward Libya began to change, and both Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, along with Fezzan, were merged into Italian Libya in 1934. In the second half of the 1930s, under the Governor Italo Balbo, Italian Libya experienced a huge development.

The colony expanded after concessions from the British colony of Sudan and a territorial agreement with Egypt. The Kufra district was nominally attached to British-occupied Egypt until 1925, but in fact remained a headquarters for the Senussi resistance until conquered by the Italians in 1931. The Kingdom of Italy at the 1919 Paris "Conference of Peace" received nothing from German colonies, but as a compensation Great Britain gave it the Oltre Giuba and France agreed to give some Saharan territories to Italian Libya.[6]

In 1931, the towns of El Tag and Al Jawf were taken over by Italy. British Egypt had ceded Kufra and Jarabub to Italian Libya on December 6, 1925, but it was not until the early 1930s that Italy was in full control of the place. In 1931, during the campaign of Cyrenaica, General Rodolfo Graziani easily conquered Kufra District, considered a strategic region, leading about 3,000 soldiers from infantry and artillery, supported by about twenty bombers. Ma'tan as-Sarra was turned over to Italy in 1934 as part of the Sarra Triangle to colonial Italy by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, who considered the area worthless and so an act of cheap appeasement to Benito Mussolini's attempts at empire.[7][7] During this time, the Italian colonial forces built a World War I–style fort in El Tag in the mid-1930s.

In 1939 some Libyans were granted special (though limited) Italian citizenship by Royal Decree No. 70 on 9 January 1939. This citizenship was necessary for any Libyan with ambitions to rise in the military or civil organizations. The recipients were officially referred to as Moslem Italians. Libya had become the fourth shore of Italy”(Trye 1998). The incorporation of Libya into the Italian Empire gave the Italian Army a greater ability to exploit native Libyans for military service. Native Libyans served in Italian formations from the beginning of the Italian occupation of Libya. On 1 March 1940, the 1st and 2nd Libyan Divisions were formed. These Libyan Infantry divisions were organized along the lines of the binary Italian infantry division. The 5th Italian Army received the 2nd Libyan Infantry division which it incorporated into the 13th corps. The Italian 10th Army received the 1st Libyan Infantry Division which it incorporated into the reserve. The Italian Libyan infantry divisions were colonial formations ("colonial" in the sense of consisting of native troops). These formations had Italian officers commanding them with Libyan NCOs and soldiers. These native Libyan formations were made up of people drawn from the coastal Libyan populations. The training and readiness of these divisions was on an equal footing with the regular Italian formations in North Africa. Their professionalism and 'esprit de corps' made them some of the best Italian infantry formations in North Africa. The Libyan divisions were loyal to Italy and provided a good combat record.[8]

After the enlargement of Italian Libya with the Aouzou Strip, Fascist Italy aimed at further extension to the south. Indeed Italian plans, in the case of a war against France and Great Britain, projected the extension of Libya as far south as Lake Chad and the establishment of a broad land bridge between Libya and Italian East Africa.[9] During World War II, there was strong support for Italy from many Muslim Libyans, who enrolled in the Italian Army. Other Libyan troops (the Savari [cavalry regiments] and the Spahi or mounted police) had been fighting for the Kingdom of Italy since the 1920s. A number of major battles took place in Libya during the North African Campaign of World War II. In September 1940, the Italian invasion of Egypt was launched from Libya.[10]

Italian Libya as the Fourth Shore was the southern part of "Imperial Italy" (orange borders), a Fascist project to enlarge Italy's national borders

From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.[12] On November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before January 1, 1952. On December 24, 1951, Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy. The Italian population virtually disappeared after the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of remaining Italians (about 20,000) in 1970.[13] Only a few hundred of them were allowed to return to Libya in the 2000s.

On 30 August 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime MinisterSilvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperationtreaty in Benghazi.[14][15][16] Under its terms, Italy would pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation.[17] In exchange, Libya would take measures to combat illegal immigration coming from its shores and boost investments in Italian companies.[15][18] The treaty was ratified by Italy on 6 February 2009,[14] and by Libya on 2 March, during a visit to Tripoli by Berlusconi.[15][19] Cooperation ended in February 2011 as a result of the Libyan Civil War which overthrew Gaddafi. At the signing ceremony of the document, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recognized historic atrocities and repression committed by the state of Italy against the Libyan people during colonial rule, stating: "In this historic document, Italy apologizes for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during the period of colonial rule." and went on to say that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era".[20]

In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony made up of the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan). The colony was subdivided into four provincial governatores (Commissariato Generale Provinciale) and a southern military territory (Territorio Militare del Sud or Territorio del Sahara Libico):[21]

The general provincial commissionerhips were further divided into wards (circondari).[21] On 9 January 1939, a decree law transformed the commissariats into provinces within the metropolitan territory of the Kingdom of Italy.[21] Libya was thus formally annexed to Italy and the coastal area was nicknamed the "Fourth Shore" (Quarta Sponda). Key towns and wards of the colony became Italian municipalities (comune) governed by a podestà.[21]

Many Italians were encouraged to settle in Libya during the Fascist period, notably in the coastal areas.[22] The annexation of Libya's coastal provinces in 1939 brought them to be an integral part of metropolitan Italy that were the focus of Italian settlement.[23]

The population of Italian settlers in Libya increased rapidly after the Great Depression: in 1927, they were just about 26,000 of them, by 1931 they were 44,600, 66,525 in 1936 and eventually, in 1939, they numbered 119,139, or 13% of the total population.[2]

They were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast, especially in the main urban centres and in the farmlands around the city of Tripoli (constituting 41% of the city's population) and Benghazi (35% of the city's population) where they found jobs in the construction boom fuelled by Fascist interventionist policies.

In 1938, Governor Italo Balbo brought 20,000 Italian farmers to settle in Libya, and 27 new villages were founded, mainly in Cyrenaica.[24]

With the pacification of Libya initiated in response to a major rebellion by indigenous Libyans against Italian colonial rule, there were mass deaths of indigenous people in Cyrenaica - one quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000 people died during the conflict.[26] Italy committed major war crimes during the conflict, including the use of illegal chemical weapons, episodes of refusing to take prisoners of war and instead executing surrendering combatants, and mass executions of civilians.[27] Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, almost half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements, slated to be given to Italian settlers.[28][29]

The Italian occupation also reduced the number of livestock by killing, confiscation or driving the animals from their pastoral land to inhospitable land near the concentration camps.[30] Number of sheep fell from 810,000 in 1926 to 98,000 in 1933, goats from 70,000 to 25,000 and camels from 75,000 to 2,000.[30]

From 1930 to 1931 during the Pacification, 12,000 Cyrenaicans were executed and all the nomadic peoples of northern Cyrenaica were forcefully removed from the region and relocated to huge concentration camps in the Cyrenaican lowlands.[31] Propaganda by the Fascist regime declared the camps to be oases of modern civilization that were hygienic and efficiently run - however in reality the camps had poor sanitary conditions as the camps had an average of about 20,000 Beduoins together with their camels and other animals, crowded into an area of one square kilometre.[32] The camps held only rudimentary medical services, with the camps of Soluch and Sisi Ahmed el Magrun with an estimated 33,000 internees having only one doctor between them.[32]Typhus and other diseases spread rapidly in the camps as the people were physically weakened by meagre food rations provided to them and forced labour.[32] By the time the camps closed in September 1933, 40,000 of the 100,000 total internees had died in the camps.[32]

After the full Libya pacification, the Italian government changed policy toward the local population: in December 1934, individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, the right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to Libyans.[33]

In a famous trip by Mussolini to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created where Mussolini met with MuslimArab dignitaries, who gave him an honorary sword (that had actually been made in Florence) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim Arab peoples there.[34]

In January 1939, Italy annexed territories in Libya that it considered Italy's Fourth Shore, with Libya's four coastal provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Bengasi, and Derna becoming an integral part of metropolitan Italy.[23] At the same time indigenous Libyans were granted "Special Italian Citizenship" which required such people to be literate and confined this type of citizenship to be valid in Libya only.[23]

Italians greatly developed the two main cities of Libya, Tripoli and Benghazi[37], with new ports and airports, new hospitals and schools and many new roads & buildings.

The famous Berenice Albergo

Also tourism was improved and a huge & modern "Grand Hotel" was built in Tripoli and in Bengasi.

The Fascist regime, especially during Depression years, emphasized infrastructure improvements and public works. In particular, Governor Italo Balbo hugely expanded Libyan railway and road networks from 1934 to 1940, building hundreds of kilometers of new roads and railways and encouraging the establishment of new industries and dozen of new agricultural villages[38] The massive Italian investment did little to improve Libyan quality of life, as the purpose was to develop the economy for the benefit of Italy and Italian settlers.[30]

The Italian aim was to drive the local population to the marginal land in the interior and to resettle the Italian population in the most fertile lands of Libya.[30]
The Italians did provide the Libyans with some initial education but minimally improved native administration. The Italian population (about 10% of the total population) had 81 elementary schools in 1939-1940, while the Libyans (more than 85% of total population) had 97.[30]
There were only three secondary schools for Libyans by 1940, two in Tripoli and one in Benghazi.[39]

The Libyan economy substantially grew in the late 1930s, mainly in the agricultural sector. Even some manufacturing activities were developed, mostly related to the food industry. Building construction increased immensely. Furthermore, the Italians made modern medical care available for the first time in Libya and improved sanitary conditions in the towns.

The Italians started numerous and diverse businesses in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. These included an explosives factory, railway workshops, Fiat Motor works, various food processing plants, electrical engineering workshops, ironworks, water plants, agricultural machinery factories, breweries, distilleries, biscuit factories, a tobacco factory, tanneries, bakeries, lime, brick and cement works, Esparto grass industry, mechanical saw mills, and the Petrolibya Society (Trye 1998). Italian investment in her colony was to take advantage of new colonists and to make it more self-sufficient. (General Staff War Office 1939, 165/b).[40]

By 1939, the Italians had built 400 kilometres (250 mi) of new railroads and 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) of new roads. The most important and largest highway project was the Via Balbo, an east-west coastal route connecting Tripoli in western Italian Tripolitania to Tobruk in eastern Italian Cyrenaica. Most of these projects and achievements were completed between 1934 and 1940 when Italo Balbo was governor of Italian Libya, as it became the Fourth Shore.[41]

The last railway development in Libya done by the Italians was the Tripoli-Benghazi line that was started in 1941 and was never completed because of the Italian defeat during World War II.[42]

Classical archaeology was used by the Italian authorities as a propaganda tool to justify their presence in the region. Before 1911, no archeological research was done in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. By the late 1920s the Italian government had started funding excavations in the main Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha (Cyrenaica was left for later excavations because of the ongoing colonial war against Muslim rebels in that province). A result of the fascist takeover was that all foreign archaeological expeditions were forced out of Libya, and all archeological work was consolidated under a centralised Italian excavation policy, which exclusively benefitted Italian museums and journals.[43]

After Cyrenaica's full 'pacification', the Italian archaeological efforts in the 1930s were more focused on the former Greek colony of Cyrenaica than in Tripolitania, which was a Punic colony during the Greek period.[43] The rejection of Phoenician research was partly because of anti-Semitic reasons (the Phoenicians were a Semitic people, distantly related to the Arabs and Hebrews).[43] Of special interest were the Roman colonies of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, and the preparation of these sites for archaeological tourism.[43]

Tourism was further promoted by the creation of the Tripoli Grand Prix, a racing car event of international importance.[44]

^This was assisted by orders from London withdrawing a large part of the Army to redeploy to Greece. According to German General Erwin Rommel "On 8th February (1941), leading troops of the British Army occupied El Agheila...Graziani's Army had virtually ceased to exist. all that remained of it were a few lorry columns and hordes of unarmed soldiers in full flight to the West. If Wavell (sic) had now continued his advance into Tripolitania, no significant resistance could have been mounted"